Story
by Dea Liberty
Summary: The Final Battle is over and the Light have won the war, but along with Voldemort, a little bit of Harry's soul died in that fight for freedom. He decides to end his life, leaving his best friends and lover to go on without him. An HD songfic. DEATHFIC.


**Story**

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**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter, characters, names and indicia are trademarks and copyright to Warner Brothers and JK Rowling. 'Story' is sung by Lene Marlin and is part of the album 'Another Day'.

**Warnings:** This story is centred on the theme of suicide; as such it contains MAIN CHARACTER DEATH. This is not a happy fic. Also, this fic has mention of SLASH, which means male/male pairing. **YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. **The author accepts no responsibility should this fic offend anyone's ideals.

**Pairings:** Ron/Hermione, mention of Harry/Draco

**Spoilers: **All published works…I think…

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**A/N:** Well…here we are: my newest songfic. I'm so sorry that it's been a while in coming, I've been so busy as well as the fact that my muse has been VERY uncooperative and have had no inspiration to write what so ever! I just want to thank all the reviewers that reviewed 'There You'll Be" my last songfic and my first attempt at fanfiction. Here's for you guys!:

**GoddessMoonLady****: **Thank you!! ^_^

**CarminaBurana1: **Ditto! I'm flattered!

**LittleWebby****:** Cheers!!

**suezzabella****: **Here you go!! Some more angst for you…can't seem to get away from it!** Catmint: **Thanks!

**couldn't**** be bothered to log in: **Cheers! I listen to music like that to help me get into the mood too! I felt sorry for Draco when I wrote it…I'm so mean to him…killing Harry off again…I don't mean to, honest!!

**Jesi177:** Here's for you then!!

**Voldie**** On Varsity Track: **It was meant to be!!

**Alysia****: **Thank you so much!

**FallenAngelOfInnocence****: **I'm so unbelievably flattered!!

Thank you guys a lot. Without the encouragement, I'm not sure I would have written anything else! I just also want to mention that some of this fic will be taken directly from the books and I can take no credit for them. That's the way this fic will work best, I believe. But anyway, please r/r.

**Story:**

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_I heard about your story from a friend;_

_To let go and make an end, that's what you did._

He closed his eyes, as if in an attempt to block out everything: the memories, the voices, the faces, the screams, but most of all, the pain. The blade glided effortless over the skin on his wrist, giving him a new focus: the sting of a knife's icy kiss. Scars criss-crossed those thin wrists in a complex pattern that was, in a strange way, strangely beautiful - at least, to him. He paused, the tip of the blade tantalisingly close to the vein that ran the length of his arm. This was what he needed: to end it all. There was nothing left to do. With an oddly relieved smile, Harry Potter pressed hard, and pulled the knife, without hesitating, from his wrist to his elbow, and waited for blissful unconsciousness to take him from his earthly pains and away, to finally be with his family. 

_You left some words saying now it would be good._

_You knew they'd cry, but you hoped they understood._

**'Dear Ron and Hermione,**

**When you find this, I'll finally be away from here. I'm sorry that it had to end this way. I know it wasn't part of the plans we had made together for the future but I had to do it. The pain I've been feeling since the final battle had become too much and I couldn't bear it. I've fulfilled my life's purpose: I defeated Voldemort, but in killing him and being involved in the war at all, I have lost a part of myself that I can never find again.**

**Please don't mourn for me; I'll finally get to go home and be with the family that I've longed for my whole life.**

**Look after each other. You two need each other more than anything; we've all known that since forever. Live a full life; the happy life that we fought so hard to achieve.**

**I hope you'll find it in your hearts to forgive me for this act of cowardice, for running away from the pain. Even if you don't forgive me, I hope you can understand why I had to do it.**

**I'm sorry and I love you both. We'll meet again.**

**All my love to last from now to forever,**

**Harry.'**

"Oh God…Harry…"

"Come here Hermione," Ron whispered, pulling the sobbing girl into his arms, his own tears flowing freely down his face. They mourned together, for the Wizarding world's saviour, for one of the best wizards the world had ever know; but most of all, they mourned the loss of their best friend, the boy who just wanted to be normal.

_Things you've had to face what, what you have seen;_

_To make it through each day, you tried, without the tears._

_They tried to help but they didn't see you crawl._

"You can talk to us; you know that right, Harry?" Hermione whispered as her best friend sat there unmoving, staring into the flames in the Gryffindor Common Room.

"Yeah, Hermione, I know. Thank you," he whispered back. The truth was that he knew he couldn't. He'd been through things, seen things and done things that he knew his best friends, however hard they tried, could never understand. No eighteen year-old should. After coming back from the final battle, the world had declared that the Boy-Who-Lived had lived again; they never understood – he died that night; his soul died as Voldemort perished, killed by the spell that he'd used on Harry all those years ago. 

_They knew you fought but they never thought you'd fall;_

_They never thought you'd fall._

"I never…I…Oh God, Ron, why'd he do it? I knew he was hurting but…"

"I think that was why, Hermione. He went through things we can only imagine. He didn't come out unscarred, 'Mione. I never thought he'd go this far either, without talking to us, but maybe he's right 'Mione, maybe we'd never have understood."

_Tell them please; how could they know?_

_Hurts inside; no scars to show._

_You played the lead and never once you failed._

"Well, that's it then, isn't it?" Harry said.

The other two stared at him. He was pale and his eyes were glittering.

"I'm going out of here tonight and I'm going to try and get to the stone first."

"You're mad!" said Ron.

"You can't!" said Hermione. "After what McGonagall and Snape have said? You'll be expelled!"

"SO WHAT?" Harry shouted. "Don't you understand? If Snape gets hold of the stone, Voldemort's coming back! Haven't you heard what it was like when he was trying to take over? There won't be any Hogwarts to get expelled from! He'll flatten it, or turn it into a school for the Dark Arts! Losing points doesn't matter any more, can't you see? D'you think he'll leave you and your families alone because Gryffindor won the House Cup? If I get caught before I can get to the Stone, well, I'll have to go back to the Dursleys and wait for Voldemort to find me there. It's only dying a bit later than I would have done, because I'm never going over to the Dark Side! I'm going through that trap door tonight and nothing you two say is going to stop me! Voldemort killed my parents, remember?

He glared at them.

"You're right, Harry," said Hermione in a small voice.

"I'll use the Invisibility Cloak," said Harry. "It's just lucky I got it back."

"But will it cover all three of us?" said Ron.

"All – all three of us?"

"Oh, come off it, you don't think we'd let you go alone?"

_And the place from where you watch us now,_

_Hope you've found your peace somehow;_

_Peace somehow._

"…And that was in our first year at Hogwarts," Hermione finished, sniffling a little, as she always did when she thought of him. 

It had been six months now since Harry had died, and as yet, no one could talk about him without feeling the gaping holes that he left behind in them, least of all, Ron and Hermione. Hermione was currently teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts whilst Ron taught Divination, a subject he had begun to show promise for during and after the OWLs but had kept it a secret. They had graduated a month after the Final Battle, before Harry's death, with Dumbledore saying that they were the most experienced class to ever leave the walls. The deaths of their friends had made Graduation harder on all of them, especially Harry.

It was something that came out of nowhere; no one knew who started it, but now, every once in a while, someone would tell the group of people that gathered to listen, both teachers and pupils alike, a little about the remarkable young man that Harry Potter really was. It had started out with small groups, as those closest to Harry had been reluctant to talk about him, with had now grown into a regular event. It was, a lot of the time, Ron and Hermione that told them of their adventures, having always been there at the times he would prove to them what a great wizard he was really destined to be. They found it helped them and that it was comforting to know that he would always be remembered; he was with them, as long as they had their memories of him. 

_I heard about your story through the years,_

_Know 'bout all your hurts and fears; I wont forget._

_I wrote a song that I wish for you to hear;_

_It's about yourself and the life you couldn't bear._

"Granger, Weasley." Hermione and Ron looked to see Draco Malfoy standing there, looking more than a little awkward.

"Something you want, Malfoy?" Ron snarled.

"I wanted to offer my condolences, Weasley. Contrary to popular belief, I thought Potter was an inspiring man and a great leader. Not many people know, but he was also a close friend, in the end, and I will always hold a deep respect for the man that saved me from myself," Malfoy replied, without even a hint of sarcasm. He looked more than a little broken. 

Of course, Ron and Hermione knew that he'd fought for their side in the war but had never known the cause for his change of heart. Now they knew; it had been Harry.

"Thank you, Malfoy. I'm glad you and Harry got along in the end. He always did hate fighting with you so very much," replied Hermione.

"I'm glad we found each other as well," smiled Malfoy, wistfully. "Anyway, take care of each other; it's what Harry would have wanted." Malfoy turned and began to walk away.

"Malfoy, if you ever want to talk, please come and find us. Any friend of Harry's is a friend of ours," Hermione said to his retreating back. It would be a while before Hermione and Ron would remember the oddness of Malfoy's phrasing or the fact that he'd called Harry by his given name.

"I may just take you up on your offer one day then, Granger. I'll see you around."

Hermione hadn't known what to make of those parting words until she'd come to Hogwarts to teach and found that Draco had taken over the teaching of Potions from Snape. After a while they had become friends and Hermione found out the truth about why Draco had turned, and the relationship between Harry and him; they hadn't just been friends, they had been lovers. 

_Tell them please; how could they know?_

_Hurts inside; no scars to show._

_You played the lead and never once you failed._

Black and Lupin stood shoulder to shoulder, wands raised.

"You should have realised," said Lupin quietly. "If Voldemort didn't kill you, we would. Goodbye, Peter."

Hermione covered her face with her hands and turned to the wall.

"NO!" Harry yelled. He ran forwards, placing himself in front of Pettigrew, facing the wands. "You can't kill him," he said breathlessly. "You can't."

Black and Lupin both looked staggered.

"Harry, this piece of vermin is the reason you have no parents," Black snarled. "This cringing bit of filth would have seen you die, too, without turning a hair. You heard him. His own stinking skin meant more to him than your whole family."

"I know," Harry panted. "We'll take him up to the castle. We'll hand him over to the Dementors. He can go to Azkaban…just don't kill him."

"Harry!" gasped Pettigrew, and he flung his arms around Harry's knees. "You – thank you – it's more than I deserve – thank you -"

"Get off me," Harry spat, throwing Pettigrew's hands off him in disgust. "I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this because I don't reckon my dad would've wanted his best friends to become killers – just for you."

No one moved or made a sound except Pettigrew, whose breath was coming in wheezes as he clutched his chest. Black and Lupin were looking at each other. Then, with one movement, they lowered their wands.

"You're the only person who has the right to decide, Harry," said Black. "But think…think what he did…"

"He can go to Azkaban," Harry repeated. "If anyone deserves that place, he does…"

Pettigrew was still wheezing behind him.

"Very well," said Lupin. "Stand aside, Harry."

Harry hesitated.

"I'm going to tie him up," said Lupin. "That's all, I swear."

Harry stepped out of the way. Thin cords shot from Lupin's wand this time, and next moment, Pettigrew was wriggling on the floor, bound and gagged.

"But if you transform, Peter," growled Black, his own wand pointing at Pettigrew, too, "we _will_ kill you. You agree, Harry?"

Harry looked down at the pitiful figure on the floor, and nodded so that Pettigrew could see him. 

_And the place from where you watch us now,_

_Hope you've found your peace somehow;_

_Peace somehow._

"Tell us some more about him, please, Professors. What was he like as a person…you know, the person behind the myths and stories?" asked a small Gryffindor First Year.

Draco, Hermione and Ron smiled at each other.

"He was the most wonderful person I ever had the honour of knowing." Surprisingly, to the older Professors, it was Draco that spoke. It was one of the first times the blond had ever freely talked about Harry to anyone but Ron and Hermione. "The myths and stories were not wrong, Amy, Harry really was the most forgiving and selfless person I have ever met."

All the students and professors present were surprised to hear so much emotion in the blonde's voice. He was, after all, one of the most unapproachable professors in Hogwarts. What surprised them more, was the fact that there were now tears in the stoic grey eyes of their Potions Master; tears for his supposed arch-rival.

"We fought for years. I was cruel to him…disgustingly cruel. I was my father's puppet…for once, at school, I could be the one in power…the one that wielded power…On my sixteenth birthday my father approached me with an order to bow down and serve Voldemort. I refused to take the mark…" His voice grew soft, but everyone was listening with rapt attention: no one had ever known the reason for Draco switching sides…then again; they'd needed anyone they could get. "When I got back to school, I was broken," he began again, after a while. "My father never took lightly to being denied anything. I tried to keep on my mask of indifference and no one noticed…no one except him. He approached me and offered the hand of friendship, after all I'd done for him. He backed me up when everyone else doubted my loyalties…He was there when I ceased to believe in life, in hope, and in myself…Harry was everything to me…and more…"

_I want to remember all there's about you,_

_And I know there's so much;_

_I see all the faces, the tears and embraces._

_Wish you could be here to see it too;_

_Could be here to see it too.___

**"Dear Mr. Potter,**

**My name is Amy Stewart and I'm a First Year Gryffindor at Hogwarts this year. I've heard so much about and I respect you greatly. I wanted to write this letter to you to thank you for giving me the chance to learn magic. Without you, I know Hogwarts would have fallen and we wouldn't be here so carefree today.**

**I also wanted to tell you that everyone here feels the same. Professor Granger says you would have hated the fact that every one of us knows your name. She said that, more than anything, you wanted to be normal. I just wanted you to know that you could never have been normal, no offence or anything, because you were such a remarkable wizard. What Professor Weasley finds funny is that you're in all of our History books. He said you hated History of Magic; but we don't anymore. Many of us lived through History. You're not History yet, Sir. Not whilst there are people around who still remember you and miss you like the professors do. They tell us about your adventures in some of our classes. From what I've heard, Sir, you're more alive now than ever before.**

**We were told, Sir, that you lost your family a long time ago. I hope you're with them now and that you're happy and finally at peace. I hope that you're watching over the professors and all of us, especially Professor Malfoy…he seems to miss you the most, and that you see how much you meant to them all. I ask you to please wait for them and welcome them into your arms when they finally find their way back to you.**

**No one will ever forget the sacrifice you made for us, Sir. You were never a coward, but a great man and an inspiration to all of us.**

**Yours Sincerely,**

**Amy Stewart."**

The small brunette placed the carefully addressed envelope onto the marble headstone that stood beneath the Weeping Willow by the Hogwarts Lake. She'd been told that this had been the only place Harry Potter had ever called home and that this was a special spot for him. With a small whisper of 'Thank you, sir' the small girl turned and ran back to the castle.

_Tell them please; how could they know?_

_Hurts inside; no scars to show._

_You played the lead and never once you failed._

"We cannot lose!" Harry's voice cried out, loud, confident and commanding as he caught the attention of everyone within the Great Hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. "Good WILL defeat evil. The price is too high for us to fall. Hogwarts MUST NOT FALL. Fight for your right to live a free life. Fight for your children's rights to live without fear. Fight for all those you care about and love, for those that are here, for those that have been and gone before us, and for those that are yet to come. Fight so that they can grow up and live away from the shadows of war. Let not our comrades' sacrifices have been in vain! FOR YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW, FRIENDS, LET US FIGHT!!"

A deafening cheer rose up from the assembled crowd as Harry finished his speech. It was the dawn of the Final Battle. By that night, everything would be over, for better or worst.

He stepped down from the stage into the arms of his best friends and his lover.

"Be careful out there, you guys. I don't want to lose you."

"We will, Harry, but you too mate," replied Ron, clapping his friend on the back.

Hermione pulled him into a hug, whispering "take care, Harry," before going to spend a few last moments with her boyfriend. That left Harry time to say goodbye to his own.

"Draco," he whispered and gathered the smaller boy into his embrace. "Please be careful. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"I will, Harry. Don't worry about me, worry about yourself. I'll have your back Harry; I'll have your back." The response was a little muffled in Harry's chest.

"You have all of me, Draco," Harry joked, pulling away. Draco smiled and his eyes drifted shut as Harry caught his lips in a searing kiss. "Always."

_And the place from where you watch us now,_

_Hope you've found your peace somehow;_

_Peace somehow._

Draco smiled at the memory. It was the last time he'd hold Harry as he was: whole. After that, Harry had been broken; Draco had not been strong enough to put him back together again, he remembered and his smile turned bitter. Alone in his room, Draco Malfoy allowed himself the freedom to cry at the injustice of it all, to cry, for the first time, for Harry.

_Tell them please; how could they know?_

_Hurts inside; no scars to show._

_You played the lead and never once you failed._

Harry was back. The rumour was rippling through the crowd and a rousing cheer rose up as the bone weary figure of Harry Potter became visible through the fog. The-Boy-Who-Lived had lived again. He'd saved them. All that week, celebration was the only agenda for the Dark Lord was dead. The shadow of fear had been lifted.

Only Draco could see that Harry wasn't whole, that he was hurting, that his soul had died. Only Draco sat by and realised that, despite his full efforts at helping his lover, Harry was slowly losing the will to live. 

_And the place from where you watch us now,_

_Hope you've found your peace somehow;_

_Peace somehow;_

He remembered their last night together, how Harry had apologised and told him to never forget that he loved him.

Draco smiled. At least Harry was reunited with his parents and the family that he longed for. He'd see him again. Harry would keep his promise. Harry would wait for them all.

Draco never forgot; no one did.

_Peace somehow._

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**_Finite Incantatum_**

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**A/N:** Et voila! There you are guys!! What do you think? Good? Bad? Awful? Mediocre? Anything? Please let me know by clicking the lil' review button and leaving me a note!! PLEASE!?! I can't improve my writing if I don't know what people are thinking, can I? So please…but no flames…flames WILL be used to toast marshmallows….yummy….Should be doing Maths revision now…have an exam tomorrow…but I couldn't revise with my muse attacking me so I've finished it…now can revise. But please…I'd like to know what you all think!

Thank you!!

~*Dea*~


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